Colorado Springs, CO (My Sportsbook) - Air Force Academy hired Troy Calhoun as its new head football coach a little more than a week after Fisher DeBerry retired.

Calhoun, who is finishing his first season as the Houston Texans offensive coordinator/quarterback coach, returns to the school from where he graduated in 1989.

Head coach Gary Kubiak brought Calhoun with him from Denver when he became Houston's head coach last year.

Calhoun worked closely with Denver head coach Mike Shanahan in 2005 when he was assistant to the head coach. The Broncos won the AFC West for the 10th time in franchise history.

The offense ranked fifth in the league with 360.4 yards per game, while the defense gave up only 85.2 yards per game on the ground, which ranked second in the NFL.

He became a well-rounded NFL coach with Denver, working as a defensive assistant (2003) before becoming the offensive assistant/special teams coach (2004).

While with the Broncos, Calhoun's teams made the playoffs each year, averaging 11 win per season.

Calhoun, who was the freshman quarterback for the 1985 Falcons that finished fifth in the polls and was 12-1, began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Air Force from 1989-90.

In 1995 he was the quarterbacks coach for Ohio and then spent the next three years as the offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach before taking the same position as Wake Forest.

DeBerry, 68, had been at the academy for 27 seasons, spending the last 23 as head coach. His teams posted a 169-107-1 mark overall, recording 17 winning seasons, before falling upon tough times recently.

The Falcons, who went just 4-8 this year (3-5 Mountain West), have had three straight losing campaigns, marking the first time that has happened at Air Force since 1979-81.